The Dangerous World of Cyberhacking

DePaul undergraduate Vincent Chunka still viscerally remembers how he felt when he realized that his checking account had been overdrawn by thousands of dollars. “I was really alarmed because my debit card statement showed a $3,000 charge that I had never made,” he recalls. “To this day, I don’t know how someone got access to my card number.” While Chunka was able to recover the lost funds, the incident made him wary. “I’m a lot more careful now,” he says, noting that he monitors his account statements and researches websites before conducting online transactions. “Still, even reputable sites may not be safe—this is the world we live in.”

Faculty in DePaul’s College of Computing and Digital Media, where Chunka is enrolled, share their thoughts on the hacking landscape—and offer suggestions for protecting personal data—in the recent issue of DePaul Magazine. As both the magazine article and infographic below illustrate, cybersecurity is an ongoing problem with no simple solution. That said, arming yourself with information is the first step in becoming more vigilant about your data security.